The new book is populated with individuals chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. And yet, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
